EXCLUSIVE: License plate-based olympic traffic control plan aborted

August 24, 2019

Tokyo--Authorities have scrapped the idea of restricting private vehicles' entry into the Metropolitan Expressway based on license plates during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, informed sources said Friday.

The organizing committee for the quadrennial sporting event and the central and Tokyo metropolitan governments found such a traffic control measure unfeasible because too many equipment and staff will be required, the sources said.

Meanwhile, the organizers hope to keep plans to impose a surcharge of 1,000 yen on vehicles, excluding trucks and others for logistics purposes, that will use the expressway during daytime but to halve tolls in the small hours, they said.

The central government will present a draft for the plans at a meeting with experts on Monday.

In other measures to ease traffic congestion, the committee and the metropolitan government are requesting companies to encourage employees to do work at home and planning to close some Metropolitan Expressway entrance toll gates. Jiji Press